Comfort Zone

It’s a tad late getting to India but the all-new diesel CR-V brings some real action to the party

- Girish Karkera

The rain seemed relentless in the coastal town of Bagaat, a 100-odd-kilometres from Manila. Philippines is prone to cyclones and while the locals went about their daily routine, we preferred to huddle inside the CR-V. Honda is nowhere near the top of the sales charts in the Philippines. Yet, this CR-V is an important model in its line-up. Important enough that it reached their shores much before us in a guise that is alarmingly apt for an Indian environment too – diesel power and seven seats.

The CR-V isn’t new to India. We have seen all but one generation here. What we never had was the diesel engine because Honda was concentrating on selling these in Europe. But diesel is losing grunt in Europe, fast enough for Honda to decide to focus on hybrids instead, there. Well, that has freed up the capacities of diesel CKDs which are now making their way to countries where oil-burners still have takers. For example, India.

But diesel is just half the story. This all-new vehicle is a clear departure from what Honda was happy doing so far with its popular SUV. The CR-V, over successive model years, had become too car-like and someone back at the Honda headquarters thought the arrival of an all-new car was the perfect moment to set the record straight – the CR-V is an SUV. Not a car. In other words, it grew bigger, now stands taller and gets a healthy dose of driver-assist systems to make the new CR-V the most rounded a sports-ute (?) than it has ever been.